EARLY COACHING DAYS

While we might complain about the pitfalls of travel today – delayed or cancelled planes, rough potholed roads and constant highway stoppages – spare a thought for our forefathers and the challenges they faced while trying to navigate even the simplest of journeys.  

People travelled by horse and sulky and bullock teams with huge loads lumbered up the streets. From the 1880s onwards, coaches ran between Proserpine and Bowen, transporting people and delivering mail.

In 1904, Tom and Joe Faust operated the mail coach between these two towns. About this time, Alexander Gordon Wilson and his son, William, opened stables and began a freight and mail coach service between Proserpine and Bowen, also carrying passengers.

The journey was often dangerous as sometimes aborigines would wait near creek crossings and throw spears at the coach as the driver slowed down. The horses would be whipped to gallop up the creek banks to avoid harm to passengers. Spears that lodged in the woodwork were kept as souvenirs.  

In 1903, J I Gray recorded in his journal that he paid 1/- for a parcel to be delivered and £1/5/- for the fare for his wife, Sarah, and son, George.

In 1908, Mrs Eliza Fuller recalled getting up very early and travelling from their farm in Strathdickie into Proserpine to catch the 6am coach then sitting in the open coach until it arrived in Bowen eleven hours later.

In the early days of coaches, Mrs Joe Faust (nee Amy Dray), remembered going to Bowen only if the dentist’s services were required. She recollected seeing the coach-and-four whizzing past on its way to Bowen, past the cemetery, up the old Bowen Road to the crossing (now Pluto Station), along a narrow bush track, through ti-tree scrub and across numerous gullies until it reached Bell’s Hotel at Bell’s Gully (also known as Billy Creek). The next stop was the Homestead Hotel. In 1885, the Deicke family established this hotel at Duck Creek, Mookarra, about ten miles (seventeen kms) south of Bowen near where the present cattle saleyards are at Miowera.

Passenger coaches left Bowen every Monday, Wednesday and Friday morning. Drivers of Thorne’s coach were Jack and Billy Thorne and Fred Watts.

Harold Baumgarten related his mother, Mrs Finlay’s memories of the first stop from Bowen – The Homestead Hotel – which she managed for the Deicke family in 1907. She served morning tea to passengers while her daughter, Ethel, 13, changed the horses and ran the old team into the paddock. The coach then travelled on to the Watts’ Hotel at Billy Creek for a midday meal and another change of horses.

Arriving at Crystalbrook about 3 pm, yet another horse team was replaced. Six horses were needed for each team and fresh horses were required often as they mostly travelled at a gallop. There was no help nor any refreshments at this stop. The driver ran them in himself at the Mail Paddock (Up River).  After crossing the river, they finally arrived at their destination at 5pm.

Just imagine the discomfort of passengers (particularly the ladies in their mode of dress) and the drivers, riding over a rough dirt track, especially in summer. No air conditioning or deodorant in those days!

It is uncertain just when passenger coach travel ceased and how long after the railway service began, however, mail coaches were still operating in 1918 according to the “Proserpine Guardian” of that year. “Postal Information – From Bowen by coach. Tuesdays 6 pm – mail delivered 9 am. Wednesday – Saturdays 6pm – delivered 7 to 8 pm.”

Story and photo courtesy Proserpine Historical Museum

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